Costa Rica

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Restaurant Review: Native Foods Café

I apologize
yet again for another gap in posts! My
wife’s family recently visited us from Vancouver, British Columbia, so I was
unable to post for a while. I was too
busy drinking, eating, and being merry. It was also the week of my wife’s birthday and since she’s the
talented one when it comes to baking, she really wanted to go nuts and she
baked several pies, a cake, and even ice cream. To say that I’ve spent the last few days trying to recover is an
understatement. I thought that I would
update with yet another restaurant review to get back into the swing of
things. Besides, I’ve been meaning to
update about Native Foods Café for a long time.

I
absolutely love Native Foods Café and if they are reading this (HI!), I hope
they know they should make a new restaurant out in the Chicago burbs. My stomach would quite appreciate it. I might be able to make it to one of their
restaurants more than once every other month if that was the case. For those of you lucky enough to be near
one, Native Foods Café is a very cool chain restaurant that is popping up in
more and more locations. They serve
what they call “fast-casual” vegan food, which basically means you get to a
counter, order your food, and sit down until they bring the food to your
table. Usually, the food arrives within
minutes of you ordering.

The ones in Chicago all opened up
within the last few years and we’ve been to all three locations. Each one is a bit different in style but the
staff, food, and atmosphere are all equally great. I’m partial to the one on Clark Street, which also has outdoor
seating, since it’s easy to get to from Union Station and the lakefront.

Our most
recent visit took place this last week when we wanted to grab lunch with my
wife’s mother and stepfather. They are
omnivores but are pretty open to most of the vegetarian or vegan places we take
them. Native Foods was on the top of
our list of places we knew that all of us would enjoy and nobody would leave
hungry. Their ingredients are homemade
and their dishes are made fresh each day.
Their homemade seitan and tempeh are both quite delicious!

This trip
was a bit lighter than usual. Normally,
as many of you readers are aware, my wife and I try to starve ourselves before
we go out so we can stuff ourselves on the food at the restaurant. However, this time we had to limit our meals
because we had plans to eat dinner with my family for my wife’s birthday. Such a shame because since Native Foods Café
changes their menu every so often, there were a few items I would’ve liked to
have tried. At least what I did have on
this visit was fantastic!

My wife had
the Ancho BBQ Brisket, which looked really good. That’s a possibility for me on our next visit.

My wife’s
mother and stepfather both had the Oklahoma Bacon Cheeseburger, and they both
really enjoyed it! As my wife’s mother
said, she gave the meal two thumbs up.
It kept them full for most of the day, too. If you were planning a day of walking around the city, this would
probably be a good meal to fill up on before continuing on your journey.

As for
yours truly, I had the Twister Wrap with sweet potato fries. The wrap had salad greens, avocado, cucumber
salsa, chipotle sauce, and Native Chicken (which you can get either blackened,
grilled, or crispy). It was
amazing! I’m a sucker for sweet potato
fries so it’s no surprise I liked that part of the meal. As long as they have this on the menu, I
would highly recommend ordering it.
Omnivores would like it because it’s hardy but doesn’t contain anything
too “weird” for them.

Twister Wrap!

Since I didn’t take a lot of photos
for this visit, I thought I’d add on the meal we had at this same location
during our previous visit. My wife and
I split a polenta appetizer.
Unfortunately, since the menu changes, I forgot the specific name of
this dish. It was also quite delicious
and I hope it comes back on the menu.
Just look at how good that looks!

I had the Philly ‘Cheese Steak’ for
my main meal. Now, I have to admit that
I’ve never had a Philly Cheese Steak when I was an omnivore and I had never
been tempted to eat one before. It
looked disgusting and like a heart attack on a plate. So I’m not sure what possessed me to try this dish but I am quite
happy that I did. It was surprisingly good
– if not a bit messy! The portion –
like everything at NFC – was large and worth every penny. It’s not currently on the menu but if you
see it when you visit, get that, too!
Heck, order one of everything.

They also
have a customer loyalty program, which can come in handy if you go there with
any sort of regularity. For our last
visit, for our two main meals we were able to save ten bucks off our order
because of it, and like I said, it’s not like we go there every week. It’s free to sign-up for it so there’s no
reason not to get it.

Artwork hanging up at the Clark Street location.

So, with
that, I will let you go back to salivating over the pictures I posted. If you have a Native Foods Café in your
neighborhood or in a location you plan to visit, I highly recommend stopping in
for a quick bite to eat. If you’re an
omnivore or someone who is veg-curious and are looking for somewhere to eat-out
at, check this place out. You can load
up on food for a decent price. And for
us broke vegans, what more could you ask for?

Until next
time, keep calm and vegan on!

You can check out Native Foods Café HERE to find
locations near you and to see their current menu. You can find them on a few sites including Twitter at
@nativefoodscafe